State leading the way in fuel cell energy

Hydrogen-based businesses expand as price of gasoline creeps upwards

John Burgeson, Staff Writer

Published 5:36 pm, Saturday, January 15, 2011

When you drink Sierra Nevada beer, you are a small contributor to Connecticut's growing fuel cell and hydrogen industry.

That's because the beer company is a customer of Danbury's FuelCell Energy Inc. It's a company that most folks haven't heard about. As its name suggests, it's a manufacturer of fuel cells, devices that turn hydrogen and oxygen into water, releasing electrical and heat energy in the process.

The Sierra Nevada brewery, in Chico, Calif., uses methane gas, a by-product of beer fermentation, as a source of hydrogen molecules for its four, 300-kilowatt FuelCell Energy units. Not only does this generate nearly all of the electricity for the brewery, but it also provides all of the heat and steam needed to run the Sierra Nevada plant.

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Now, FCE is in negotiations to locate about 14 megawatts of fuel cell generating power in Bridgeport, company officials said. This would be sufficient to power 14,000 homes, and there would be no particulate pollution, unlike the 584 megawatt Bridgeport Harbor Generating Station coal-fired plant operated by PSEG Power.

"We have a very viable hydrogen fuel cell industry in Connecticut, said Joel M. Rinebold, director of energy initiatives of the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology. "There's something like 80 companies here that, either directly or indirectly, are involved in the hydrogen and fuel cell industry."

Rinebold said that for decades, the state has supplied fuel cells for very specialized applications, such as those found in NASA spacecraft.

More recently, he said, these industries have concentrated more on down-to-earth applications, such as producing hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles and generating electricity from fuel cells for domestic use. There are also companies that manufacturer electrolysis machines, which split apart water molecules to make hydrogen and oxygen.

"Fuel cells really have a unique place where they fit into the energy picture," said Daniel Brdar, president and CEO of FuelCell Energy. "They bring all of the desirable environmental benefits of things like solar and wind, but the fact that they're not intermittent means that they fill a space that none of those other technologies can."

The cost issue

Fuel cells are devices that combine hydrogen and oxygen to make water. In this chemical reaction, electricity and heat are also produced.

So if hydrogen is the perfect fuel, why are our cars and homes still powered with fossil fuel energy?

The reason is that fossil fuels are cheap to produce, simple to store and easy to burn. They also have ---- particularly in the case of gasoline ---- what engineers call an excellent energy-to-volume ratio, or "energy density." In other words, liquid fossil fuels like diesel and gasoline pack huge amounts of heat energy in a given volume and at a relatively low cost.

But according to Rinebold, the cost of crude oil is getting to the point where hydrogen is looking much better.

So, as the price of gasoline goes up, a hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicle will transport you farther for a $20 bill than will gasoline, he said.

Running on hydrogen

"But, there is a chicken-and-egg issue," he said. "If we have hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles on the road, we'll need hydrogen refueling stations."

Already, there are four transit buses in greater Hartford that are powered by hydrogen. The first one appeared on April 10, 2007.

But hydrogen, although by far the most plentiful element in the universe, isn't easy to come by here on earth. We have plenty of hydrogen, to be sure. But on our planet it's all locked up in other molecules, such as in water and in all organic molecules, like methane.

A perfect world?

In a perfect world, industry executives say, solar and wind power would be used to generate current for electrolysis of water, and the hydrogen from this process would power our fuel cells ---- a totally green and pollution-free fuel.

But this scenario is perhaps a century or more in the future, in part because there's no "hydrogen infrastructure," unlike the 305,000 miles of natural gas pipelines in the United States.

"That hydrogen for the buses comes from the electrolysis of water at Niagara Falls," Brown said. "Then it's liquefied and trucked down to Hartford."

Turning hydrogen gas into liquid hydrogen is no small feat; it has to be cooled to minus 423 degrees, or just 20 degrees Celsius above absolute zero. "It comes down in what amounts to a big Thermos bottle," Brown said.

The methane solution

The Hartford buses aside, most of UTC's fuel cell technology is based on using methane, or natural gas, as its source of hydrogen.

"The question is, which fossil fuel do you want to get tied to?" Brown asked. "U.S. and Canada can be totally self-sufficient for the next one hundred years on the natural gas reserves that we know about today. We're never going to figure out a way to generate pure hydrogen and pipe it around as easily as we can with natural gas."

Methane-powered fuel cells, even though they produce global-heating carbon dioxide, still have a smaller carbon footprint than the gasoline engine in your car, Brown said. If the methane comes from a sewage treatment plant or a similar renewable source ---- like the Sierra Nevada brewery ---- so much the better.

UTC has been in the fuel cell business since 1958 and had units on every NASA flight since the first Apollo flight. It competes against FuelCell Energy; both build fuel cell units that run on methane, or natural gas. FCE's units are larger, ranging from 300 kilowatts to more than 2.8 megawatts. UTC's biggest seller is its 400 kilowatt unit. The company has sold about 270 of them, primarily to supermarkets, hospitals and other institutions that can make use of their waste heat.

Putting waste heat to work

There are about 20 different types of fuel cells. FCE uses the molten carbonate technology which has an operating temperature of about 625 degrees Celsius, or about 1,150 degrees Fahrenheit ---- just a few degrees shy of the melting point of aluminum. This heat, when vented off, can be used to make steam and also for useful applications, such as heating buildings.

UTC's units don't run as hot, company officials say, but their waste heat is still useful.

"Fuel cells that produce combined heat and power will play a major role, because that's the only way to produce power 24/7, and reduce your carbon footprint," UTC's Brown said. "Wind can't do it. Solar can't do it."

Brown said that UTC expects to sell about 100 or more units this year.

"The fact that supermarkets like them is important because that's a super thin-margin business," Brown said. "With state and federal incentives, fuel cells are competitive in California and Connecticut, which have high electricity rates."

The business end

As for cost, the UTC 400 kw unit sells for about about $2.1 million.

"As we get more volume, the price will go down," Brown said, "because our parts suppliers will charge less. And, as energy costs to up, the market will bear a higher price."

FCE, meanwhile, is concentrating more on the domestic electricity market. One of its largest customers is South Korea, which has purchased dozens of its larger 2.8 megawatt units to connect to its power grid. One 2.8 mw unit can provide electricity to about 2,800 homes.

"The nice thing about fuel cells, aside from their greater efficiency, is that you don't have the NIMBY (Not In My BackYard) issues that you do with nuclear and coal," Brdar said. "You don't have smokestacks and you don't have huge transmission lines, because the power is generated where it's needed."

the other side of hydrogen

There's another facet to Connecticut's hydrogen industry, and that's the companies that make the units that generate hydrogen through the electrolysis of water. This part of the business is essential for the development of hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles already being manufactured by General Motors and Toyota.

Avalence, of Milford, is a manufacturer of "Hydrofillers," or units that, when supplied with water and electricity, produce hydrogen under pressure. It's pronounced like "ah VEY lence."

Avalence's name refers to the fact that hydrogen has a valence of one, meaning that it has one "valence electron," or one election that can form a chemical bond.

One of its units is being installed in Hartford to help supply hydrogen to the five fuel cell transit buses. The Avalence hydrogen generators look like large restaurant refrigerators.

"Our units are very tolerant of the power fluctuations that you get with renewable power ---- solar and wind," said Deborah Moss, company chairwoman. "With our Hydrofiller, all you need is the water and the electricity," she said, "and you get pure hydrogen, under pressure."

The ground floor

She said that Avalence is on the ground floor of an industry with a lot of potential. "The fuel cell vehicle is on the road, and the GM Chevy fuel cell Equinox is in its fourth generation. It can travel 300 miles on a single tank ---- three kilograms ---- of hydrogen. There are great strides being made."

She said that it would be best if the hydrogen industry should aim for energy that doesn't contribute to global warming, or as she called it, "the end zone," and divorce itself from natural gas and other fossil fuels altogether.

"Why wait?" she said. "Why invest huge resources in something that we know is an intermediate solution?"

on the road

If you happen to have one of the hydrogen-powered SUVs made by both General Motors and Toyota, you can get it refilled in Wallingford, at the Proton Energy Systems plant, the other Connecticut company in the hydrogen generation business.

As with Avalence, Proton Energy builds units that turn water into hydrogen and oxygen gas through electrolosis.

The company as had its up and downs, and in 2008 was all but bankrupt. It was then purchased by Tom Sullivan, the founder and chairman of the Lumber Liquidators flooring chain, according to chairman and CEO Robert J. Friedland. Since then, business and profits have improved.

"He (Sullivan) stabilized the company, but then the recession hit, so we've been working though that and we're still growing," Friedland said.

350 miles on a tank of hydrogen

Friedland notes that electrolysis is, in essence, a fuel cell in reverse. Although Proton has built fuel cells in the past, it decided to concentrate on the hydrogen generation industry.

"There are so many people making fuel cells, we decided to stop making our own fuel cells," he said.

Friedland said that Proton is focusing on generating hydrogen for the vehicular market.

"Right now our largest system generates 65 kilograms a day of hydrogen. To put that in perspective, a Toyota fuel cell SUV can taken on about five or six kilograms of pressurized hydrogen and go 350 miles. We can refill about 10 vehicles per day ---- not like a gasoline dealer on the corner, but for the next several years, a good size."

Proton has eight fuel-cell SUVs, one of which Friedland often uses as his personal car.

Waiting for $5 gasoline

As with just about everyone else in the alternative energy industry, Friedland is waiting for the cost of fossil fuels, particularly gasoline, to creep upwards.

"If you lay the discussion on the feet of global warming, you lose," he said. "But at some point we're going to run out of easy oil. And with a roll out of these hydrogen refueling stations, we can deliver hydrogen to a vehicle at five dollars a kilogram. At this price, you can fill up your vehicles with six kilograms for about thirty bucks and go about 350 miles."

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This is actually very competitive to gasoline, he says.

"It works out to a fuel,'' Friedland said, "that's equivalent to about $2.40 gas."